Energy expert of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms Sergiu Tofilat considers the National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE) approved the new electricity and gas tariffs with serious violations and these should be thus annulled, not only suspended, IPN reports.

“The ANRE recommended the operators to contract audit companies to verify the correctness of their costs. So, it is not about a complex audit of operators’ activity. This shows once again that the Agency is incompetent as it does not trust that those calculations are correct,” the expert said in an interview for Radio Free Europe.

Sergiu Tofilat said the formula uttered by a number of civil society representatives is similar to the proposal formulated by the President of Armenia, who suggested carrying out a complex audit of the operator’s entire work with the participation of civil society members.

“If we refer to Moldova, the Law on Electric Power and the Law on Natural Gas clearly stipulate that it is the Agency that is empowered to perform not audits, but inspections at the operators. So, the ANRE should have organized a tender contest to select a famous company. A group of civil society representatives should also have been formed to take part in this audit,” said the expert.

According to Sergiu Tofilat, given that the decision to approve the higher electricity and gas tariffs was suspended, the old tariffs will be restored. Thus, the operators will have to recalculate the payments for those who paid the bills based on the new tariffs. If they forget to ‘recalculate’, the consumers have the right to demand this in a written form and to attach the bills paid according to the new charges to their applications.